by Jeffrey Miller

Created on: October 05, 2009

Are you Scared Johnny?

Through the rain-splattered windshield Johnny Smith stared at the Henderson house in front of him. The three-story Victorian-style house, with tall, leafless poplar and oak trees rising up on either side of the stone and wood structure appeared ominous in the dark afternoon through intermittent flashes of lightning.

The Henderson house-every town has one. It was the kind of place that fueled many a child's fears, imaginations and nightmares over the years.

He tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel while he listened to R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." He glanced at his wristwatch. 3:00.

"Damn," he muttered. "Where is she?"

The she was Sue Williams a noted magazine illustrator and artist from Chicago who had called Johnny's Century 21 Office two weeks before and told his receptionist Wanda that she was interested in buying the Henderson place. A week later the papers had been drawn up and the loan had been approved.

In the inside pocket of his suit jacket he felt the tickets he had bought for Wanda and himself. It was a premature celebration-a one-week trip to Bermuda-but this was a done deal. He had the papers. Sue Williams was driving down from the city this afternoon to sign them. And if everything went according to plan, he and Wanda would be on the red-eye out of O'Hare to Bermuda later that evening.

He had been trying to sell the Henderson place for two years. It had been too expensive for local prospective homebuyers but now that was history. The loan had already gone through and all that remained was signing the papers. He closed his eyes and imagined running on the beach with Wanda-Wanda in a very small bikini her large....

A thunderclap woke him from his daydream. The rain had stopped, but not for long. He spotted some children pass the front of his car carrying a Jack o' Lantern. Next week was Halloween.

"Halloween already," thought Johnny as he watched the kids walk past his car. And in that split second-seeing that Jack o' Lantern-and the house in front of him, was transported back in time, back in time to another Halloween night, 40 years ago-1969.

Back then Johnny was a 12-year-old skinny, lanky kid and had just started wearing black horn-rimmed glasses. Most of the kids at school had already started calling him "four eyes."

On that Halloween night he had gone trick or treating with Susie, Mary Sue, Larry, and Marty. Susie was a ballerina, Mary Sue was Little Red Riding

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